Abstract

Pancreatic cancer seriously threatens human health and life. Dandelion root extract (DRE) has a good inhibitory effect on pancreatic cancer cells, however, its mechanism is not clear up to now. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) microspectroscopy can detect biomacromolecular changes sensitively. In this study, FTIR microspectroscopy was used to investigate pancreatic cancer PNAC-1 cells apoptosis induced by DRE. The shift of amide I and principal component analysis (PCA) indicated the significant changes in proteins while peak-area ratios showed the changes of biomacromolecular structure and content. This study may provide new insights into DRE-induced apoptosis of PNAC-1 cells, which also suggests that FTIR microspectroscopy may be a potential tool for apoptotic study.